Association between ambient air pollution and blood sex hormones levels in men

Concerns are growing over time on the adverse health effects of air pollution. However, the association between ambient air pollution and blood sex hormones in men is poorly understood. We included 72,917 men aged 20-55 years from February 2014 to December 2019 in Beijing, China in this study. Blood testosterone, follicle stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, estradiol, and prolactin levels of each participant were measured. We collected exposure data of daily ambient levels of particulate matter ≤10 μm (PM10) and ≤2.5 μm (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide, and ozone. Generalized linear mixed models were used to analyze the potential association between ambient air pollution exposure and blood sex hormone levels. The results showed that both immediate and short-term cumulative PM2.5, PM10, and SO2 exposure was related to altered serum sex hormone levels in men, especially testosterone. An increase of 10 μg/m3 in PM2.5 and PM10 in the current day was related to a 1.6% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.9%-2.3%) and 1.1% (95% CI: 0.5%-1.6%) decrease in testosterone, respectively, and a decreasing tendency of accumulated effects persisted within lag 0-30 days. The present study demonstrated that it is important to control ambient air pollution exposure to reduce effects on the reproductive health of men.